Hide and Seek, by Wilkie Collins

Chapter XV. The Discovery of Arthur Carr.

While Matthew Grice was traveling backwards and forwards between town and town in the midland
counties, the life led by his young friend and comrade in the metropolis, was by no means devoid of incident and
change. Zack had met with his adventures as well as Mat; one of them, in particular, being of such a nature, or,
rather, leading to such results, as materially altered the domestic aspect of the lodgings in Kirk Street.

True to his promise to Valentine, Zack, on the morning of his friend’s departure for the country, presented himself
at Mr. Strather’s house, with his letter of introduction, punctually at eleven o’clock; and was fairly started in life
by that gentleman, before noon on the same day, as a student of the Classic beau-ideal in the statue-halls of the
British Museum. He worked away resolutely enough till the rooms were closed; and then returned to Kirk Street, not by
any means enthusiastically devoted to his new occupation; but determined to persevere in it, because he was determined
to keep to his word.

His new profession wore, however, a much more encouraging aspect when Mr. Strather introduced him, in the evening,
to the private Academy. Here, live people were the models to study from. Here he was free to use the palette, and to
mix up the pinkest possible flesh tints with bran-new brushes. Here were high-spirited students of the fine arts, easy
in manners and picturesque in personal appearance, with whom he contrived to become intimate directly. And here, to
crown all, was a Model, sitting for the chest and arms, who had been a great prize-fighter, and with whom Zack joyfully
cemented the bonds of an eternal (pugilistic) friendship, on the first night of his admission to Mr. Strather’s
Academy.

All through the second day of his probation as a student, he labored at his drawing with immense resolution and
infinitesimal progress. All through the evening he daubed away industriously under Mr. Strather’s supervision, until
the Academy sitting was suspended. It would have been well for him if he had gone home as soon as he laid down his
brushes. But in an evil hour be lingered after the studies of the evening were over, to have a gossip with the
prize-fighting Model; and in an indiscreet moment he consented to officiate as one of the patrons at an exhibition of
sparring, to be held that night in a neighboring tavern, for the ex-pugilist’s benefit.

After being conducted in an orderly manner enough for some little time, the pugilistic proceedings of the evening
were suddenly interrupted by one of the Patrons present (who was also a student at the Drawing Academy), declaring that
his pocket had been picked, and insisting that the room door should be closed and the police summoned immediately.
Great confusion and disturbance ensued, amid which Zack supported the demand of his fellow-student — perhaps a little
too warmly. At any rate, a gentleman sitting opposite to him, with a patch over one eye, and a nose broken in three
places, swore that young Thorpe had personally insulted him by implying that he was the thief; and vindicated his moral
character by throwing a cheese-plate at Zack’s head. The missile struck the mark (at the side, however, instead of in
front), and breaking when it struck, inflicted what appeared to every unprofessional eye that looked at the injury like
a very extensive and dangerous wound.

The chemist to whom Zack was taken in the first instance to be bandaged, thought little of the hurt; but the local
doctor who was called in, after the lad’s removal to Kirk Street, did not take so reassuring a view of the patient’s
case. The wound was certainly not situated in a very dangerous part of the head; but it had been inflicted at a time
when Zack’s naturally full-blooded constitution was in a very unhealthy condition, from the effects of much more ardent
spirit-drinking than was at all good for him. Bad fever symptoms set in immediately, and appearances became visible in
the neighborhood of the wound, at which the medical head shook ominously. In short, Zack was now confined to his bed,
with the worst illness he had ever had in his life, and with no friend to look after him except the landlady of the
house.

Fortunately for him, his doctor was a man of skill and energy, who knew how to make the most of all the advantages
which the patient’s youth and strength could offer to assist the medical treatment. In ten days’ time, young Thorpe was
out of danger of any of the serious inflammatory results which had been apprehended from the injury to his head.

Wretchedly weak and reduced — unwilling to alarm his mother by informing her of his illness — without Valentine to
console him, or Mat to amuse him, Zack’s spirits now sank to a far lower ebb than they had ever fallen to before. In
his present state of depression, feebleness, and solitude, there were moments when he doubted of his own recovery, in
spite of all that the doctor could tell him. While in this frame of mind, the remembrance of the last sad report he had
heard of his father’s health, affected him very painfully, and he bitterly condemned himself for never having written
so much as a line to ask Mr. Thorpe’s pardon since he had left home. He was too weak to use the pen himself; but the
tobacconist’s wife — a slovenly, showy, kind-hearted woman — was always ready to do anything to serve him; and he
determined to make his mind a little easier by asking her to write a few penitent lines for him, and by having the
letter despatched immediately to his father’s address in Baregrove Square. His landlady had long since been made the
confidant of all his domestic tribulations (for he freely communicated them to everybody with whom he was brought much
in contact); and she showed, therefore, no surprise, but on the contrary expressed great satisfaction, when his request
was preferred to her. This was the letter which Zack, with tearful eyes and faltering voice, dictated to the
tobacconist’s wife:—

“MY DEAR FATHER, — I am truly sorry for never having written to ask you to forgive me before. I write now, and beg
your pardon with all my heart, for I am indeed very penitent, and ashamed of myself. If you will only let me have
another trial, and will not be too hard upon me at first, I will do my best never to give you any more trouble.
Therefore, pray write to me at 14, Kirk Street, Wendover Market, where I am now living with a friend who has been very
kind to me. Please give my dear love to mother, and believe me your truly penitent son,

“Z.
THORPE, jun.”

Having got through this letter pretty easily, and finding that the tobacconist’s wife was quite ready to write
another for him if he pleased, Zack resolved to send a line to Mr. Blyth, who, as well as he could calculate, might now
be expected to return from the country every day. On the evening when he had been brought home with the wound in his
head, he had entreated that his accident might be kept a secret from Mrs. Blyth (who knew his address), in case she
should send after him. This preliminary word of caution was not uselessly spoken. Only three days later a note was
brought from Mrs. Blyth, upbraiding him for never having been near the house during Valentine’s absence, and asking him
to come and drink tea that evening. The messenger, who waited for an answer, was sent back with the most artful verbal
excuse which the landlady could provide for the emergency, and no more notes had been delivered since. Mrs. Blyth was
doubtless not overwell satisfied with the cool manner in which her invitation had been received.

In his present condition of spirits, Zack’s conscience upbraided him soundly for having thought of deceiving
Valentine by keeping him in ignorance of what had happened. Now that Mat seemed, by his long absence, to have deserted
Kirk Street for ever, there was a double attraction and hope for the weary and heart-sick Zack in the prospect of
seeing the painter’s genial face by his bedside. To this oldest, kindest, and most merciful of friends, therefore, he
determined to confess, what he dare not so much as hint to his own father.

The note which, by the assistance of the tobacconist’s wife, he now addressed to Valentine, was as
characteristically boyish, and even childish in tone, as the note which he had sent to his father. It ran thus:

“MY DEAR BLYTH, — I begin to wish I had never been born; for I have got into another scrape — having been knocked on
the head by a prize-fighter with a cheese-plate. It was wrong in me to go where I did, I know. But I went to Mr.
Strather, just as you told me, and stuck to my drawing — I did indeed! Pray do come, as soon as ever you get back — I
send this letter to make sure of getting you at once. I am so miserable and lonely, and too weak still to get out of
bed.

“My landlady is very good and kind to me; but, as for that old vagabond, Mat, he has been away in the country, I
don’t know how long, and has never written to me. Please, please do come! and don’t blow me up much if you can help it,
for I am so weak I can hardly keep from crying when I think of what has happened. Ever yours,

“Z.
THORPE, jun.

“P. S. If you have got any of my money left by you, I should be very glad if you would bring it. I haven’t a
farthing, and there are several little things I ought to pay for.”

This letter, and the letter to Mr. Thorpe, after being duly sealed and directed, were confided for delivery to a
private messenger. They were written on the same day which had been occupied by Matthew Grice in visiting Mr. Tatt and
Mr. Nawby, at Dibbledean. And the coincidences of time so ordered it, that while Zack’s letters were proceeding to
their destinations, in the hand of the messenger, Zack’s fellow-lodger was also proceeding to his destination in Kirk
Street, by the fast London train.

Baregrove Square was nearer to the messenger than Valentine’s house, so the first letter that he delivered was that
all-important petition for the paternal pardon, on the favorable reception of which depended Zack’s last chance of
reconciliation with home.

Mr. Thorpe sat alone in his dining-parlor — the same dining-parlor in which, so many weary years ago, he had argued
with old Mr. Goodworth, about his son’s education. Mrs. Thorpe, being confined to her room by a severe cold, was unable
to keep him company — the doctor had just taken leave of him — friends in general were forbidden, on medical authority,
to excite him by visits — he was left lonely, and he had the prospect of remaining lonely for the rest of the day. That
total prostration of the nervous system, from which the doctor had declared him to be now suffering, showed itself
painfully, from time to time, in his actions as well as his looks — in his sudden startings when an unexpected noise
occurred in the house, in the trembling of his wan yellowish-white hand whenever he lifted it from the table, in the
transparent paleness of his cheeks, in the anxious uncertainty of his ever-wandering eves.

His attention was just now directed on an open letter lying near him — a letter fitted to encourage and console him,
if any earthly hopes could still speak of happiness to his heart, or any earthly solace still administer repose to his
mind.

But a few days back, his wife’s entreaties and the doctor’s advice had at length prevailed on him to increase his
chances of recovery, by resigning the post of secretary to one of the Religious Societies to which he belonged. The
letter he was now looking at, had been written officially to inform him that the members of the Society accepted his
resignation with the deepest regret; and to prepare him for a visit on the morrow from a deputation charged to present
him with an address and testimonial — both of which had been unanimously voted by the Society “in grateful and
affectionate recognition of his high character and eminent services, while acting as their secretary.” He had not been
able to resist the temptation of showing this letter to the doctor; and he could not refrain from reading it once again
now, before he put it back in his desk. It was, in his eyes, the great reward and the great distinction of his
life.

He was still lingering thoughtfully over the last sentence, when Zack’s letter was brought in to him. It was only
for a moment that he had dared to taste again the sweetness of a well-won triumph — but even in that moment, there
mingled with it the poisoning bitter of every past association that could pain him most! — With a heavy sigh, he put
away the letter from the friends who honored him, and prepared to answer the letter from the son who had deserted
him.

There was grief, but no anger in his face, as he read it over for the second time. He sat thinking for a little
while — then drew towards him his inkstand and paper — hesitated — wrote a few lines — and paused again, putting down
the pen this time, and covering his eyes with his thin trembling hand. After sitting thus for some minutes, he seemed
to despair of being able to collect his thoughts immediately, and to resolve on giving his mind full time to compose
itself. He shut up his son’s letter and his own unfinished reply together in the paper-case. But there was some
re-assuring promise for Zack’s future prospects contained even in the little that he had already written; and the
letter suggested forgiveness at the very outset; for it began with, “My dear Zachary.”

On delivering Zack’s second note at Valentine’s house, the messenger was informed that Mr. Blyth was expected back
on the next day, or on the day after that, at the latest. Having a discretionary power to deal as she pleased with her
husband’s correspondence, when he was away from home, Mrs. Blyth opened the letter as soon as it was taken up to her.
Madonna was in the room at the time, with her bonnet and shawl on, just ready to go out for her usual daily walk, with
Patty the housemaid for a companion, in Valentine’s absence.

“Oh, that wretched, wretched Zack!” exclaimed Mrs. Blyth, looking seriously distressed and alarmed, the moment her
eyes fell on the first lines of the letter. “He must be ill indeed,” she added, looking closely at the handwriting;
“for he has evidently not written this himself.”

Madonna could not hear these words, but she could see the expression which accompanied their utterance, and could
indicate by a sign her anxiety to know what had happened. Mrs. Blyth ran her eye quickly over the letter, and
ascertaining that there was nothing in it which Madonna might not be allowed to read, beckoned to the girl to look over
her shoulder, as the easiest and shortest way of explaining what was the matter.

“How distressed Valentine will be to hear of this!” thought Mrs. Blyth, summoning Patty up-stairs by a pull at her
bell-rope, while Madonna was eagerly reading the letter. The housemaid appeared immediately, and was charged by her
mistress to go to Kirk Street at once; and after inquiring of the landlady about Zack’s health, to get a written list
of any comforts he might want, and bring it back as soon as possible. “And mind you leave a message,” pursued Mrs.
Blyth, in conclusion, “to say that he need not trouble himself about money matters, for your master will come back from
the country, either to-morrow or next day.”

Here her attention was suddenly arrested by Madonna, who was eagerly and even impatiently signing on her fingers:
“What are you saying to Patty? Oh! do let me know what you are saying to Patty?”

Mrs. Blyth repeated, by means of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet, the instructions which she had just given to the
servant; and added — observing the paleness and agitation of Madonna’s face — “Let us not frighten ourselves
unnecessarily, my dear, about Zack; he may turn out to be much better than we think him from reading his letter.”

“May I go with Patty?” rejoined Madonna, her eyes sparkling with anxiety, her fingers trembling as they rapidly
formed these words. “Let me take my walk with Patty, just as if nothing had happened. Let me go! pray, let me go!”

“She can’t be of any use, poor child,” thought Mrs. Blyth; “but if I keep her here, she will only be fretting
herself into one of her violent headaches. Besides, she may as well have her walk now, for I shan’t be able to spare
Patty later in the day.” Influenced by these considerations, Mrs. Blyth, by a nod, intimated to her adopted child that
she might accompany the housemaid to Kirk Street. Madonna, the moment this permission was granted, led the way out of
the room; but stopped as soon as she and Patty were alone on the staircase, and, making a sign that she would be back
directly, ran up to her own bed-chamber.

When she entered the room, she unlocked a little dressing-case that Valentine had given to her; and, emptying out of
one of the trays four sovereigns and some silver, all her savings from her own pocket-money, wrapped them up hastily in
a piece of paper, and ran down stairs again to Patty. Zack was ill, and lonely, and miserable; longing for a friend to
sit by his bedside and comfort him — and she could not be that friend! But Zack was also poor; she had read it in his
letter; there were many little things he wanted to pay for; he needed money — and in that need she might secretly be a
friend to him, for she had money of her own to give away.

“My four golden sovereigns shall be the first he has,” thought Madonna, nervously taking the housemaid’s offered arm
at the house-door. “I will put them in some place where he is sure to find them, and never to know who they come from.
And Zack shall be rich again — rich with all the money I have got to give him.” Four sovereigns represented quite a
little fortune in Madonna’s eyes. It had taken her a long, long time to save them out of her small allowance of
pocket-money.

When they knocked at the private door of the tobacco-shop, it was opened by the landlady, who, after hearing what
their errand was from Patty, and answering some preliminary inquiries after Zack, politely invited them to walk into
her back parlor. But Madonna seemed — quite incomprehensibly to the servant — to be bent on remaining in the passage
till she had finished writing some lines which she had just then begun to trace on her slate. When they were completed,
she showed them to Patty, who read with considerable astonishment these words: “Ask where his sitting-room is, and if I
can go into it. I want to leave something for him there with my own hands, if the room is empty.”

After looking at her young mistress’s eager face in great amazement for a moment or two, Patty asked the required
questions; prefacing them with some words of explanation which drew from the tobacconist’s wife many voluble
expressions of sympathy and admiration for Madonna. At last, there came to an end; and the desired answers to the
questions on the slate were readily given enough, and duly, though rather slowly, written down by Patty, for her young
lady’s benefit. The sitting-room belonging to Mr. Thorpe and the other gentleman, was the front room on the first
floor. Nobody was in it now. Would the lady like to be shown —

Here Madonna arrested the servant’s further progress with the slate pencil — nodded to indicate that she understood
what had been written — and then, with her little packet of money ready in her hand, lightly ran up the first flight of
stairs; ascending them so quickly that she was on the landing before Patty and the landlady had settled which of the
two ought to have officially preceded her.

The front room was indeed empty when she entered it, but one of the folding doors leading into the back room had
been left ajar; and when she looked towards the opening thus made, she also looked, from the particular point of view
she then occupied, towards the head of the bed on which Zack lay, and saw his face turned towards her, hushed in deep,
still, breathless sleep.

She started violently — trembled a little — then stood motionless, looking towards him through the door; the tears
standing thick in her eyes, the color gone from her cheeks, the yearning pulses of grief and pity beating faster and
faster in her heart. Ah! how pale and wan and piteously still he lay there, with the ghastly white bandages round his
head, and one helpless, languid hand hanging over the bedside! How changed from that glorious creature, all youth,
health, strength, and exulting activity, whom it had so long been her innocent idolatry to worship in secret! How
fearfully like what might be the image of him in death, was the present image of him as he lay in his hushed and awful
sleep! She shuddered as the thought crossed her mind, and drying the tears that obscured her sight, turned a little
away from him, and looked round the room. Her quick feminine eyes detected at a glance all its squalid disorder, all
its deplorable defects of comfort, all its repulsive unfitness as a habitation for the suffering and the sick. Surely a
little money might help Zack to a better place to recover in! Surely her money might be made to minister in
this way to his comfort, his happiness, and even his restoration to health!

Full of this idea, she advanced a step or two, and sought for a proper place on the one table in the room, in which
she might put her packet of money.

While she was thus engaged, an old newspaper, with some hair lying in it, caught her eye. The hair was Zack’s and
was left to be thrown away; having been cut off that very morning by the doctor, who thought that enough had not been
removed from the neighborhood of the wound by the barber originally employed to clear the hair from the injured side of
the patient’s head. Madonna had hardly looked at the newspaper before she recognized the hair in it as Zack’s by its
light-brown color, and by the faint golden tinge running through it. One little curly lock, lying rather apart from the
rest, especially allured her eyes; she longed to take it as a keepsake — a keepsake which Zack would never know that
she possessed! For a moment she hesitated, and in that moment the longing became an irresistible temptation. After
glancing over her shoulder to assure herself that no one had followed her upstairs, she took the lock of hair, and
quickly hid it away in her bosom.

Her eyes had assured her that there was no one in the room; but, if she had not been deprived of the sense of
hearing, she would have known that persons were approaching it, by the sound of voices on the stairs — a man’s voice
being among them. Necessarily ignorant, however, of this, she advanced unconcernedly, after taking the lock of hair,
from the table to the chimney-piece, which it struck her might be the safest place to leave the money on. She had just
put it down there, when she felt the slight concussion caused by the opening and closing of the door behind her; and
turning round instantly, confronted Patty, the landlady, and the strange swarthy-faced friend of Zack’s, who had made
her a present of the scarlet tobacco-pouch.

Terror and confusion almost overpowered her, as she saw him advance to the chimney-piece and take up the packet she
had just placed there. He had evidently opened the room-door in time to see her put it down; and he was now
deliberately unfolding the paper and examining the money inside.

While he was thus occupied, Patty came close up to her, and, with rather a confused and agitated face, began writing
on her slate, much faster and much less correctly than usual. She gathered, however, from the few crooked lines
scrawled by the servant, that Patty had been very much startled by the sudden entrance of the landlady’s rough lodger,
who had let himself in from the street, just as she was about to follow her young mistress up to the sitting-room, and
had uncivilly stood in her way on the stairs, while he listened to what the good woman of the house had to tell him
about young Mr. Thorpe’s illness. Confused as the writing was on the slate, Madonna contrived to interpret it thus far,
and would have gone on interpreting more, if she had not felt a heavy hand laid on her arm, and had not, on looking
round, seen Zack’s friend making signs to her, with her money loose in his hand.

She felt confused, but not frightened now; for his eyes, as she looked into them, expressed neither suspicion nor
anger. They rested on her face kindly and sadly, while he first pointed to the money in his hand, and then to her. She
felt that her color was rising, and that it was a hard matter to acknowledge the gold and silver as being her own
property; but she did so acknowledge it. He then pointed to himself; and when she shook her head, pointed through the
folding doors into Zack’s room. Her cheeks began to burn, and she grew suddenly afraid to look at him; but it was no
harder trial to confess the truth than shamelessly to deny it by making a false sign. So she looked up at him again,
and bravely nodded her head.

His eyes seemed to grow clearer and softer as they still rested kindly on her; but he made her take back the money
immediately, and, holding her hand as he did so, detained it for a moment with a curious awkward gentleness. Then,
after first pointing again to Zack’s room, he began to search in the breast-pocket of his coat, took from it at one
rough grasp some letters tied together loosely, and a clumsy-looking rolled-up strip of fur, put the letters aside on
the table behind him, and, unrolling the fur, showed her that there were bank-notes in it. She understood him directly
— he had money of his own for Zack’s service, and wanted none from her.

After he had replaced the strip of fur in his pocket, he took up the letters from the table to be put back also. As
he reached them towards him, a lock of hair, which seemed to have accidentally got between them, fell out on the floor
just at her feet. She stooped to pick it up for him; and was surprised, as she did so, to see that it exactly resembled
in color the lock of Zack’s hair which she had taken from the old newspaper, and had hidden in her bosom.

She was surprised at this; and she was more than surprised, when he angrily and abruptly snatched up the lock of
hair, just as she touched it. Did he think that she wanted to take it away from him? If he did, it was easy to show him
that a lock of Zack’s hair was just now no such rarity that people need quarrel about the possession of it. She reached
her hand to the table behind, and, taking some of the hair from the old newspaper, held it up to him with a smile, just
as he was on the point of putting his own lock of hair back in his pocket.

For a moment he did not seem to comprehend what her action meant; then the resemblance between the hair in her hand
and the hair in his own, struck him suddenly.

The whole expression of his face changed in an instant — changed so darkly that she recoiled from him in terror, and
put back the hair into the newspaper. He pounced on it directly; and, crunching it up in his hand, turned his grim
threatening face and fiercely-questioning eyes on the landlady. While she was answering his inquiry, Madonna saw him
look towards Zack’s bed; and, as he looked, another change passed over his face — the darkness faded from it, and the
red scars on his cheek deepened in color. He moved back slowly to the further corner of the room from the
folding-doors; his restless eyes fixed in a vacant stare, one of his hands clutched round the old newspaper, the other
motioning clumsily and impatiently to the astonished and alarmed women to leave him.

Madonna had felt Patty’s hand pulling at her arm more than once during the last minute or two. She was now quite as
anxious as her companion to quit the house. They went out quickly, not venturing to look at Mat again; and the landlady
followed them. She and Patty had a long talk together at the street door — evidently, judging by the expression of
their faces, about the conduct of the rough lodger up-stairs. But Madonna felt no desire to be informed particularly of
what they were saying to each other. Much as Matthew’s strange behavior had surprised and startled her, he was not the
uppermost subject in her mind just then. It was the discovery of her secret, the failure of her little plan for helping
Zack with her own money, that she was now thinking of with equal confusion and dismay. She had not been in the front
room at Kirk Street much more than five minutes altogether — yet what a succession of untoward events had passed in
that short space of time!

For a long while after the women had left him, Mat stood motionless in the furthest corner of the room from the
folding-doors, looking vacantly towards Zack’s bedchamber. His first surprise on finding a stranger talking in the
passage, when he let himself in from the street; his first vexation on hearing of Zack’s accident from the landlady;
his momentary impulse to discover himself to Mary’s child, when he saw Madonna standing in his room, and again when he
knew that she had come there with her little offering, for the one kind purpose of helping the sick lad in his distress
— all these sensations were now gone from his memory as well as from his heart; absorbed in the one predominant emotion
with which the discovery of the resemblance between Zack’s hair and the hair from Jane Holdworth’s letter now filled
him. No ordinary shocks could strike Mat’s mind hard enough to make it lose its balance — this shock
prostrated it in an instant.

In proportion as he gradually recovered his self-possession so did the desire strengthen in him to ascertain the
resemblance between the two kinds of hair once more — but in such a manner as it had not been ascertained yet. He stole
gently to the folding-doors and looked into young Thorpe’s room. Zack was still asleep.

After pausing for a moment, and shaking his head sorrowfully, as he noticed how pale and wasted the lad’s face
looked, he approached the pillow, and laid the lock of Arthur Carr’s hair upon it, close to the uninjured side of
Zack’s head. It was then late in the afternoon, but not dusk yet. No blind hung over the bedroom window, and all the
light in the sky streamed full on to the pillow as Mat’s eyes fastened on it.

The similarity between the sleeper’s hair and the hair of Arthur Carr was perfect! Both were of the same light brown
color, and both had running through that color the same delicate golden tinge, brightly visible in the light, hardly to
be detected at all in the shade.

Why had this extraordinary resemblance never struck him before? Perhaps because he had never examined Arthur Carr’s
hair with attention until he had possessed himself of Mary’s bracelet, and had gone away to the country. Perhaps also
because he had never yet taken notice enough of Zack’s hair to care to look close at it. And now the resemblance was
traced, to what conclusion did it point? Plainly, from Zack’s youth, to none in connection with him. But what
elder relatives had he? and which of them was he most like?

Did he take after his father?

Mat was looking down at the sleeper, just then; something in the lad’s face troubled him, and kept his mind from
pursuing that last thought. He took the lock of hair from the pillow, and went into the front room. There was anxiety
and almost dread in his face, as he thought of the fatally decisive question in relation to the momentous discovery he
had just made, which must be addressed to Zack when he awoke. He had never really known how fond he was of his fellow
lodger until now, when he was conscious of a dull, numbing sensation of dismay at the prospect of addressing that
question to the friend who had lived as a brother with him, since the day when they first met.

As the evening closed in, Zack woke. It was a relief to Mat, as he went to the bedside, to know that his face could
not now be clearly seen. The burden of that terrible question pressed heavily on his heart, while he held his comrade’s
feeble hand; while he answered as considerately, yet as briefly as he could, the many inquiries addressed to him; and
while he listened patiently and silently to the sufferer’s long, wandering, faintly-uttered narrative of the accident
that had befallen him. Towards the close of that narrative, Zack himself unconsciously led the way to the fatal
question which Mat longed, yet dreaded to ask him.

“Well, old fellow,” he said, turning feebly on his pillow, so as to face Matthew, “something like what you call the
‘horrors’ has been taking hold of me. And this morning, in particular, I was so wretched and lonely, that I asked the
landlady to write for me to my father, begging his pardon, and all that. I haven’t behaved as well as I ought; and,
somehow, when a fellow’s ill and lonely he gets homesick — ”

His voice began to grow faint, and he left the sentence unfinished.

“Zack,” said Mat, turning his face away from the bed while he spoke, though it was now quite dark. “Zack, what sort
of a man is your father?”

“What sort of a man! How do you mean?”

“To look at. Are you like him in the face?”

“Lord help you, Mat! as little like as possible. My father’s face is all wrinkled and marked.”

“Aye, aye, like other old men’s faces. His hair’s grey, I suppose?”

“Quite white. By-the-by — talking of that — there is one point I’m like him in — at least, like what he
was, when he was a young man.”

“What’s that?”

“What we’ve been speaking of — his hair. I’ve heard my mother say, when she first married him — just shake up my
pillow a bit, will you, Mat?”

“Yes, yes. And what did you hear your mother say?”

“Oh, nothing particular. Only that when he was a young man, his hair was exactly like what mine is now.”

As those momentous words were spoken, the landlady knocked at the door, and announced that she was waiting outside
with candles, and a nice cup of tea for the invalid. Mat let her into the bedchamber — then immediately walked out of
it into the front room, and closed the folding-doors behind him. Brave as he was, he was afraid, at that moment, to let
Zack see his face.

He walked to the fireplace, and rested his head and arm on the chimney-piece — reflected for a little while — then
stood upright again — and searching in his pocket, drew from it once more that fatal lock of hair, which he had
examined so anxiously and so often during his past fortnight in the country.

“Your work’s done,” he said, looking at it for a moment, as it lay in his hand — then throwing it into the
dull red fire which was now burning low in the grate. “Your work’s done; and mine won’t be long a-doing.” He
rested his head and arm again wearily on the chimney-piece, and added:

“I’m brothers with Zack — there’s the hard part of it! — I’m brothers with Zack.”